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Fighting With the Weather...

Written by Sarah Yates

Thursday, May 30, 2013

Wow, this is not normal prairie weather. From what I’ve been told, systems blow through here in a day. Most years, you’ll have a weather day every once in a while. Well, this year, and especially the last week, we’ve really had to the fight the weather to get any surveying done. If it’s not gusty winds from the east (we’ve had easterly winds since we arrived in Brandon--which is never a good sign), it’s low ceilings and low visibility and fog brought on by the stagnant low pressure systems that seem to linger here for days. It’s all part of the same weather system that’s causing all the tornadic activity throughout the mid-western United States. We’ve had almost two weeks of marginal weather, and while we’ve flown some mornings, we’ve been turned around almost every day due to low ceilings, low visibility, and fog. While yesterday (May 29th) was a full survey day, we still had to fight with low visibility on a few lines, meaning some segments were missed or only partially completed. We were able to finish up all our air-ground segments after 6 hours of flying, and we’ve now completed all but Stratum 37. So, we have two days of flying left. It’s just a matter of when the weather will allow us to fly.

We are located at the blue dot. I have to say, at least today was an easy “no go” decision! Photo by Sarah Yates, US FWS

Our current weather in Brandon (May 30th). Photo by Sarah Yates, US FWS